A gentle journey to awakening

Author: Cass

The great thing about rituals and spells is that there is a great deal of freedom (for a pagan anyway) to develop something that is powerful and meaningful to you. The principles of like speaking to like, of attraction and vibration, mean that something which is intensely relevant to me may have no meaning to you at all, and that’s OK.

My husband and I are weird nerds. We know this, and we’re perfectly comfortable with it. So comfortable in fact that we have a ritual, something that we do together, exactly the same way every time, such that it is now almost a sacred thing. Every time we do it, it’s a reaffirmation that we share something important, something powerful. Every time we do it, for those few moments, we are doing the exact same thing at the exact same time and we’re doing it with purpose… that’s powerful ju ju in anyone’s paradigm.

I’m going to share our ritual with you, not because I think you should be doing it too (though for some I’m sure it’d work just fine) but to show how simple these things can be while still being effective. Don’t worry, it’s not anything difficult or naughty (I know some of you were going there) and we routinely do it in front of other people and they don’t even know!

Ingredients

Two can’s of Dr Pepper (try not to lose it, but the kind with the corn syrup is just better. It’s a sometimes food, so I refuse to feel guilty about it.)

Ritual

Someone gets the cans. There’s no rule about who gets the cans from the fridge, but they are always cans, and it’s usually done when the OTHER person is having a hard day (though not always.)

Procurer hands one can to recipient (don’t you love that language?)

Both participants look at each other with their fingers poised to open the cans. Cans are then opened in unison.

‘Cheers’ is then made with the cans. First sip is taken in unison. Usually at least one of us makes some sort of noise of happiness. Dr Pepper is freakin’ awesome.

The rest of the cans are drunk over the following hour or so, there’s no time limit, but during that time there is usually a lot of smiling, some hugging, some talking. A feeling of closeness and similarity. We’ve reminded each other that we’re together, that we’re the same in many ways, and that we bot want to put our energy into our lived together.

The whys.

Why Dr Pepper? We’re in Australia and it’s a bit of a nerd culture thing here. Mostly only gamers and geeks seem to be into it. I have NO idea why that is, this stuff is amazing, but lots of other people don’t seem to like it, so it’s something we share that’s a little bit different.

The process of making the same actions, deliberately in tandem, is a powerful way of syncing two sets of energy and thought. It’s not complicated, it’s not fancy, but with two kids we don’t have a huge amount of time for complicated and fancy and we both know it. Fast and dirty and ‘whatever works’ – that’s the motto for a house like ours.

Normally it’s something we do when one or both of us is having a hard day. Dr Pepper isn’t readily available in stores, there are only a few places we can go to get it, so even the trip is a bit of a ritual. It means one of us is thinking about the other. Aware of the others mental state. Recognizing that the other one needs a little energy, a little something to build them up.

Do I really think my marriage works because of a couple of cans of soda a month?

Well, no, obviously it’s not just that. A marriage works because two people put in the effort, they love each other and they stick out the times that maybe aren’t so fun. There are always plenty of those.

Rituals can be powerful ways of moving energy around. Of syncing people and intentions (not unlike your computer and your phone) and all else being equal, of providing a space for us to remember who we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. That’s why our two little cans of soda every few weeks is such a powerful ritual for us. No candles, not incense, no chanting (though there’s always a time and place for those too!) Just focus and intention and of course love.

One of the hardest things to do sometimes is to go easy on yourself. To take time, be realistic, and be kind. I suffer from Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction(SPD) – which is a bit of a fancy way of saying my pelvis falls apart sometimes. It’s very painful, and almost entirely invisible. If you strip me naked you might be able to see that on my bad days there can be up to 2 inches of different between one hipbone’s height and the other.

On the days when it’s playing up, everything is difficult. I don’t just mean walking or running or housework. I mean sitting, and standing, and even lying down. There is no position, no action, that isn’t painful. Yeah, sucks pretty bad.

I had quite a bad week this week, probably because of a dose of flu, and it’s led me to a bit of a revelation and resolution. I need to be more proactive and scientific about how I take care of my body. Most forms of exercise are out, I can’t do them, which means I need to get this damn pelvis under control.

So;

Recording

I’ve have a damn daily planner that I have always been extremely terrible about using. Well I’m using it now. Every day I’ll be recording; exercises done and when, food, medication required (these are pain and anti inflammatory meds.)

The thing is, I have not insignificant stretches of time where I do OK. I move around, I feel pretty reasonable, I can get off the anti inflammatories and I’m cruising along. Then wham! Something blows out and I have no idea what’s caused it and why it’s happening. Maybe nothing caused it? Maybe it’s a thing that just happens and I’ll have to come to terms with that… but maybe not.

How stupid will I feel in another 5 years if it turns out something simple, something easily avoided, was the cause of a lot of my suffering? Pretty bloody stupid, that’s how. So, we’re going to do some record keeping and look for patterns.

Food

There are a lot of foods that have at least a mild effect on inflammation in the body. I have a little file on my computer that I’ve been compiling, and I want to fold as many of these things into my diet as possible. Nothing gross or that I can’t stomach, I’m not so far gone I’m prepared to live on brown rice forever, but these are simple changes that I can make to include more of the things that a) I already like and b) could have a bit of a positive effect on my condition.

**Side note, I made that >. It was amazing, and I’ll do it again.

Stress!

Ahhh my old friend. It could be all in my mind, but it seems to me that I get more grief from my hips when something stressful is going on and I know I have to do something, than on normal days. This is not to say I don’t have important days where I’m fine, or boring normal days when I’m in agony, just that I feel like there might be a correlation there somewhere and that it’s worth having a look at.

I need a calm down/meditation/chillax method, so I’ll be experimenting with a few over the next couple of months and keeping a record of how I think they’re going.

This is what stress looks like to me. That’s one day of my children in the living room.

Go me with the overhauling of things!

What do you need to do to look after yourself? Are there things in your life you could really do with understanding more?

One of the central truths about myself is that I have a tendency to feel inadequate. This applies in all aspects of both my life and my being… I’m never enough (and you can forget about exceeding expectations.) This is, generally speaking, not a positive state to inhabit day in and day out. The times in my life when I have felt accomplished and pleased with my abilities or efforts are so few as to be counted on a single hand.

That’s not good.

Today, I’m writing a list of five things about me which are positive and true.

I know a ridiculous amount about literature, stories, storytelling and TV.

Seriously, I spent a weekend with some beautiful old friends this month and we talked about a lot of things. One of them told me before leaving that he now had a big list of things to read and watch and experience that he wouldn’t have known about otherwise, and he really looked forward to seeing me again (probably in another 6 months or so) when we’d be able to talk about the things he’d gone away to find.

This might not seem like much of a super power, but in its own way it is. I’m quite good at talking to someone for a while and directing them to stories which will resonate with them. I do it for my Mother In Law on an almost weekly basis… she loves all things psychological. If it revolves around the way people think and react and interact, she’s going to like it largely irrespective of the genre. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to be just a little bit proud of my ability to see into people, to know the stories that’ll touch them, and to be able to direct them there. That’s pretty cool.

For the record, this food was not off, it was in fact delicious.

I can smell off food.

I don’t mean in the way everyone can smell that pile of rotting matter in the crisper, everyone can do that. I mean things that are about to turn, but haven’t yet. Things that seem just fine but will curdle in your tummy and thus leave a nasty smell in the carpet when they come back later. My husband routinely walks up to me with containers of stuff and says “Smell this.”

In this area in our house, my word is law. If I say it’s bad, it goes in the bin or in the compost – no one argues with me anymore. A half dozen ‘but it smells alright to me’ at the beginning of the relationship which led to gastrointestinal distress, and now, no one argues.

This would probably have been a much more valuable talent before refrigeration and used by dates, but it is a talent non-the-less, and I do get to use it pretty regularly.

I’m moderately linguistically gifted.

Reading came pretty naturally to me very early. My father insists I was reading on my own by the time I was three, and tackled Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was 7. Because my favorite movie as a child was a BBC production of twelth night, Shakespearean and Chaucerian English comes very easily to me. From there, middle English wasn’t a big leap. I can translate Beowulf reasonably well, and muddle my way through most romance languages (written far better than verbal.)

This isn’t particularly useful, except on board game night with family friends where the winning team for word based games is invariably the team that has me on it. It balances out though, because anything more complicated than simple addition and subtraction and steam starts coming out of my ears and a recording plays demanding someone reboot the system because I’ve overheated.

I’m creative.

Often it doesn’t go anywhere, because I’m also Queen of the procrastinators (bow before me!) but I’m a very creative person. I love to write (which I’m moderately good at) and draw (not so good at that one) and take photographs (that one’s hit and miss.) I love to sing, which draws mixed reviews, but it makes me feel good and my youngest daughter doesn’t mind so we sing together a lot.

I wish I had more energy and confidence with this in particular.

I love. A lot.

To the casual observer it might seen that I’m a bit withdrawn and distant. I don’t go out much, and I don’t meet a lot of new people, people freak me out a little. The casual observer would be wrong though… I don’t really have any ‘friends’ as such. My world is divided into two groups, acquaintances and family. I fold brothers and sisters (and a couple of non-binary individuals too) into my family like I’m trying to shuffle in a second deck. Maybe it’s because I grew up an only child? Maybe some part of me has always been aware of my elder sibling (who never arrived) and I’ve been trying to fill their place? I don’t know, but that position in your life where you like each other and it’s cool to hang out and what-not, doesn’t really exist for me. It’s all or nothing.

I suppose this might not be a purely positive thing. It makes my circle relatively small. At the same time, I find generally speaking that the love I give out comes back to me just as powerfully from those who hang around. My ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ are always there if I’m in need, and it’s OK for me to ask for help, even if it’s a pest, because we’re family. And it’s perfectly normal for me to find myself on last minute flights to other states after midnight phone calls. I’m extremely lucky to have a beautiful and understanding husband, a wonderful father, and beautiful hippy Mother in law, all of whom understand that I physically can’t not be there if I’m needed. They help out with the kids, they roster things around, and hold down the fort while I’m gone… they’re really f*&(ing amazing actually.

So there we go. Five positive things about me which are true. I’d love for you to take some time and come up with five positive and true things about yourself that you can be proud of! You could post them here in the comments, or maybe link to them in your own blog.